Claire Danes Joins Zac Efron in Linklater's Me and Orson Welles

Kaplow adaptation starts shooting this month.

He’s been known to make the most of modern technology in his films, but for his next project, Richard Linklater is taking his inspiration from a good old-fashioned book.

Starting this month, Linklater will be filming an adaptation of Robert Kaplow’s Me and Orson Welles, described by The Hollywood Reporter as a “period coming-of-age novel” that takes place in 1937. According to the Reporter, Claire Danes, Eddie Marsan, Leo Bill, and Imogen Poots have just joined a cast that already included Zac Efron, Ben Chaplin, and Christian McKay. The latter is making his screen debut in the film, which the Reporter describes as follows:

[It] centers on a high school student (Efron) who, while strolling the streets of New York, happens upon the yet-to-open Mercury Theatre and is noticed by its mercurial founder, Orson Welles. He lands a bit part in “Julius Caesar,” the production that catapulted Welles to the top, and spends the next week learning about life and love. Newcomer Christian McKay plays Welles, and Chaplin (“Water Horse: The Legend of the Deep“) has been cast as English film and stage actor George Coulouris.

Linklater is doing a bit of looking back behind the scenes as well — Orson Welles‘ script was written by Holly Gent Palmo, who worked as a production assistant on Linklater’s Dazed and Confused.